18. JUSTICE
JUSTICE
It was the first time since her interview that I’d seen Skye dressed up.
She was adorned in a yellow sundress that highlighted her curves and her pretty dark skin.
And her hair was pulled up off her neck in a tight bun, a little gloss on her lips.
All this time she’d been moving through my house in scrubs.
Her thickness showed even in something as minimal as that.
But seeing her in a dress did shit to my chest.
I wanted to untie that little knot at her waist with my teeth, and that was a thought I had no business having at my daughter’s birthday party.
“DADDY!”
Dream’s voice snatched me back to reality.
“Alright, baby girl.” I opened the car door and my princess exploded out of it in a cloud of pink tulle, and I scooped her up before her little shoes hit the ground. “You ready for your surprise?”
“YES!”
I carried her around the side of the castle to the front, where I had it waiting.
A white horse and a carriage with gold trim, the driver in a tall hat. It was storybook perfect. The second Dream saw it, she gasped so hard I felt it. “Is that for me? Daddy, is that for ME?”
“That’s all you, princess. He’s going to bring you to your party like the queen you are.”
She lost it. Screaming, kicking her little legs, and I set her down before she wiggled out of my arms. Then she grabbed my hand, and she grabbed Skye’s, and she looked up at both of us with her face shining.
“You have to come too. Both of you. Please please please.”
Skye’s eyes came to mine over the top of Dream’s head, a question in them, giving me the out. You don’t have to include the help. I didn’t take it.
“You heard the birthday girl,” I said. “Get in.”
It’s a strange thing, being happy. I’d forgotten what it felt like, so at first I didn’t recognize it for what it was.
Dream sat up between us pointing at everything like she’d never seen trees before, narrating her own parade.
Skye had an arm looped around her so she wouldn’t tumble off, laughing at everything my baby said.
I sat on the other side with my arm stretched along the back of that seat.
Not touching her. Just close enough to feel the warmth coming off her shoulder.
“You clean up nice, Miss Mercer,” I said, low, under Dream’s chatter. “I was starting to think you slept in scrubs or sweats.”
“I do.” She didn’t miss a beat. “This is a costume. I’m undercover as a person with a social life.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Well, I’ve made it onto a horse and carriage with my boss, so I think I’m winning.” She smiled.
“If this is all you have for your social life, I gotta get you out more.”
Skye’s eyes held mine one second longer than they needed to before she turned back to the baby, flustered.
One second. That’s all it was. But I felt it move through me like something with a current in it. I held her eyes. I don’t look away from what I want. Let her be the one to blink.
“Ms. Skye, look!” My daughter pointed at the beautiful garden set up in the back of the castle.
My family and tons of her friends were out back when the carriage pulled around. As soon as we arrived, they cheered and started singing happy birthday!
Mehar had turned that castle lawn into a kingdom, princesses everywhere, a dozen of Dream’s little friends from Kingsbrook running around in gowns and party tiaras with fake jewels, a cake taller than the birthday girl.
Rita was throned like a Queen in a chair someone had smartly placed in the shade.
Sarai was on a blanket crawling around beside Serenity’s feet.
Zainab’s twins were down on the blanket playing with each other.
Zainab and Mehar stood near the punch bowl while Zainab held her niece Aziza, giving her sister a much needed break.
Quest and Prime stood off by the food doing what they do, watching everything, looking like money.
My people. All of them out here in the sun for my baby.
Dream stood up in that carriage and waved like a homecoming queen. The yard cheered, and I swear that child grew two inches off the sound of it.
I climbed down first, then reached up to help her. She leaped into the crowd and got swallowed up in aunties, cousins, and screaming friends. Then I turned back and put my hand up for Skye.
She looked at it a second. Then she put her hand in mine and stepped down. It was nothing. A man helping a woman off a carriage. Except her hand was warm and small in mine, and neither one of us let go as fast as the moment called for.
That’s when I caught Kira across the yard.
Standing by the drink table, not touching her drink, watching my hand around Skye’s hand with a look on her face that could’ve curdled milk. She caught me catching her and rearranged it fast into a smile, lifted her cup, went back to whatever conversation she was pretending to engage in.
Skye slipped her hand out of mine, smooth, and went off to speak to Rita and the family. I stood there a second with a cold little knowledge settling into my chest. I’d started something in that yard, and I did not know how to stop it.
I found Storie over by the castle wall, off to the side of the noise like always.
She’d changed into the spare outfit. Whatever storm had been on her in the parking lot was gone now, packed clean away, replaced with a calm smile that didn’t quite fit the girl who’d stormed off an hour ago.
“You good?” I asked her.
“I’m great, Daddy. It’s a nice party.”
“Good. I need your help with something. Dream’s real gift. Come on.”
I took her around the back of the castle, to the little paddock where the handler had the gift waiting out of sight.
“For Dream,” I said, and watched my oldest see the horse for the first time. “She’s been on me about riding for a year. Figured she’s old enough to learn on a real one.”
Storie stopped. Her eyes went to that black mare and stayed there, and her face did something I couldn’t quite catch before it was gone.
“A horse? You got it for her?” she said, with a hint of disappointment.
“I did.”
Then she smiled, big and bright, and turned that smile up at me. “Daddy, she’s going to lose her mind. This is the best present ever. Can I be the one to walk her out? Please? I want to see her face.”
“Yeah. And if you get it together by your sixteenth birthday, I’ll get you a car.”
I put my arm around my girl and squeezed, and she leaned into me, warm, happy, everything a father wants his child to be.
“I promise I’ll do better,” she said.
“I’m holding you to that.” I kissed the top of her head. “Come on. Let’s go make your sister’s whole life.”
When Storie and I brought the horse out, the party stopped.
A young black mare, glossy as poured ink, with a big red bow around her neck that she kept trying to eat.
I’d gone back and forth on it, a pony versus a horse, before I landed on the horse.
Dream had been talking about riding for a year now.
A child grows out of a pony. She grows into a horse.
This one she could learn on. This one could be hers for a long time.
The handler walked her out slow. Storie took the lead from him and brought that mare the last few steps to her little sister herself. Dream looked at that horse like her heart had walked out on four legs.
“Happy birthday sis!”
“She’s MINE?”
“She’s yours, sweetie. What you gon’ name her?” I replied.
Dream studied that black mare for a while, petting her side.
“Midnite,” she declared. “Because she’s dark like the sky at night and I love her.”
The yard went up. And I stood there watching both my girls. Storie leaned down and gave her sister a hug. All the kids gathered around to pet and feed Midnite. I couldn’t have been more proud.
“You spoil that child rotten,” Rita said when I made my way over to her chair. She said it like an accusation and a blessing at the same time.
“Don’t do that.” I bent and kissed the top of her head. “Let me have my day.”
Skye was standing near Rita’s chair. I found myself parking next to her, which was becoming a habit I hadn’t decided to make. We watched the party a minute, the kids, the horse, the loud beautiful mess of it.
“You do spoil them,” Skye said, quiet, not judging, just seeing.
“I know I do.” I kept my eyes on Dream. “I know exactly what I’m doing and I do it anyway.
” I don’t know why I kept talking but I felt like sharing with her.
“Their mother’s gone. And there’s a hole in them where she’s supposed to be, and I can’t fill it, no matter how much I spend or how hard I try.
So I overdo it. Buy the horse, throw the castle party, say yes when I should say no.
” I exhaled. “I know it. I know one day I’ma turn around and they’re gonna be rotten and it’ll be my doing.
I just haven’t figured out how to look at what they lost and tell them no. ”
She was quiet next to me, letting me have the space to say it. And that quiet worked one more thing loose in me, a thing only the family knew.
“Storie was the one who found her,” I said.
Skye turned her head.
“Her mother. When she passed.” I watched my oldest across the yard, stroking that horse’s neck.
“She found the body. Actually when I walked in she said, ‘I saw her take her last breath.’ She was only twelve years old. Nobody should have to see they mama like that, and my baby did, alone, and I wasn’t there.
I had ran to the store.” My jaw tightened.
“So when she’s cold or difficult, I remember that.
I remember she carried something no child should carry.
And I give her all the grace I got. Maybe too much.
But I can’t help it. She earned it the worst way there is. ”
“Oh, Justice.” Skye’s voice had gone soft, and there was real grief in it, real feeling for a girl she barely knew. “That’s a terrible thing for a child to live through. I’m so sorry. For both of you. Did you get her counseling?”
“She did grief counseling for a bit and seemed to have gotten better. Then I don’t know. The last year or so has been tough.” I cleared my throat, already embarrassed I’d said so much. “I’ve made mistakes with her. I know I have. But I’ll fix them. I’m looking for a good therapist now.”
She nodded slowly, and we stood there a moment in it.
Then I asked her the thing I had no business asking.
“Do you have kids? Want them? My bad for overstepping.”
Her face changed. Quick. There and gone, a shadow crossing behind a window. Then she smiled, easy, and reached for a joke like a woman reaching for a coat.
“Lord, no.” She waved it off easy, a little laugh in it. “I like being able to hand ’em back at the end of the day. Give me all the auntie perks and none of the stretch marks.”
I chuckled. “Fair enough.”
And that was that. Her eyes flickered when she said it, quick, there and gone, but I didn’t think twice about it. Folks got their reasons for the lives they pick, and it wasn’t my business to go digging in hers. She’d given me a straight answer and a good joke, and I took her at her word.
“I care about them, though,” she said after a moment, softer, like she wanted me to have that part plain. “Your girls. I want you to know that. I know I’m the help, but I don’t do this for a check. I care about them.”
“I know you do.” And I did. “Dream’s easy. She’ll love anybody who loves her back.” I looked at Storie across the yard. “The other one’s harder. But she’ll come around to you. Give her time.”
Skye didn’t say anything to that. She just nodded, and kept her eyes on my oldest, and I couldn’t read what moved behind her face.
That’s when I felt it. Eyes on us.
I looked up, and there was Kira again, across the yard, watching me stand too close to another woman with an expression she didn’t bother to hide this time. Not hurt. Harder than hurt. A woman who’d already made up her mind.
And that cold prickle came back up the back of my neck, stronger now. I needed to keep a watch out for her.